Bay Area students stage walkout

Bernice Yeung, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, April 22, 1998

1998-04-22 04:00:00 PDT S.F. BAY AREA; CONCORD, CALIFORNIA -- CONCORD - Thousands of Bay Area high school and middle school students cut class Wednesday morning and gathered for a rally to protest the condition of public education in California.

The young demonstrators rode BART to Concord, where they marched to the Concord Police Station, a spiffy new building that, their leaders say, contrasts markedly with their schools.

"I don't want my brothers and sisters to go through the same stuff I did," said student Sergio Rodriguez of Oakland's Skyline High School, as he marched toward the police station. "The roofs are falling down, there are leaks everywhere. This is not an environment for learning. We should not put our students through this. We should not put our future through this."

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"All the money is going to other stuff, and there should be more money going to schools," said Jason Reddic, 15, before hopping BART to Concord to join more than 2,000 other students from Richmond, San Francisco, Daly City, Antioch, San Leandro, Hayward, Oakland and Concord.

The walkout is the latest orchestrated by Voices of Struggle, a Berkeley-based Chicano organization which challenges the state's funding priorities for schools and prisons, as well as federal immigration policy. It also wants ethnic studies in public schools.

The group has organized five protests since 1991, the largest one a November 1994 walkout involving 14 cities, 10,000 Bay Area students which shut three freeways.

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In April 1994, similar walkouts were staged in San Francisco and Hayward, where 500 students from San Francisco and 1,000 students from Hayward demonstrated for racial diversity in education.

"We want to make the schools better," said Gabriel Hernandez, 36, founder and leader of Voices of Struggle.

"Look at the physical structures of the schools. They are falling apart. In some schools, there is no heating, broken windows, security with metal detectors. It's an environment that makes it harder to learn."

Oakland's Castlemont High School sophomore Lashanda Carter, 15, said Tuesday she would join the walkout because she doesn't like her school's appearance, its packed classrooms and the way students are treated there.

"We have the power to change the schools," she said.

Sandina Robbins, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco Unified School District, said the district also has felt a lack of resources. Last year, the state increased spending for prison upkeep by 10 percent while the allocation for education stayed the same, she said.

"I can see how it is frustrating for the students," McLaughlin said. "It is frustrating for the staff, the administration and the school board." &lt;

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